Where: Pot Smoker BBQ, 340 Edgefield Road, North Augusta, SC 29841 – map www.thepotsmokerbbq.com This the monthly dinner meeting of the premier Miata Club in the CSRA. Come out and have some eats with fellow[...]

Location: The Outing Club in Aiken, SC. The Outing Club is located, appropriately enough, on Outing Club Rd which is off the 118 By-pass about 2 miles from USC Aiken. The entrance gate (33.595227, -81.762587)[...]

Breakfast, what more can I say. The owner says they have a buffet and he’s quite proud of it. All the classics: Eggs, bacon, biscuits, grits. Gas pumps out front, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a gas station. Construction-site decor.

If you are coming from the Edgefield or Augusta area and would like to caravan to the Inn, meet us at the Circle K gas station parking lot at I-20 Exit 1. We will depart at 5:30 p.m. promptly for the ride to the Inn.

No pre-payment this year is required. Checks will be per couple/per single as needed. Club will provide a modest cash rebate.

Directions to the Inn:

From I-20

Exit at Exit 18, which is Hwy. 19. Go the intersection of Hwy 118; it’s about 5 miles, and turn left. Go to the third traffic light after the turn and turn left on Wire Rd. Go 0.8 of a mile and turn right on New Bridge Rd. It only goes to the right and there is an intersection sign before the turn. The Inn is 3.9 miles on the left: Pink, Green and White house

From US 1

Coming thru Aiken; you will be on Richland Ave US 78. Turn north on York St. (US 1) and go to the light at Hampton St. Turn right on Hampton and follow it as it curves to the left and morphs into Camellia. Stay on Camellia until it crosses Hwy 118 or Rudy Mason Parkway and becomes Wire Rd. Go 0.8 of a mile and turn right on New Bridge. It only goes to the right and there is an intersection sign before the turn. The Inn is 3.9 miles on the left: Pink, Green and White house.

FromGraniteville

When you get to University Parkway (Hwy 118), turn left and take it all around the top side of Aiken. After you cross US 1, go to the second traffic light and turn left on Wire Rd. Go 0.8 of a mile and turn right on New Bridge. It only goes to the right and there is an intersection sign before the turn. The Inn is 3.9 miles on the left: Pink, Green and White house

Just south of historic Waynesboro (Birddog Capital of the World) is a small lake with cottages along the shore. There sits the Lake View Restaurant, open for breakfast at 6 a.m. Lucky for us, we’re shooting for an 8:30 chow time. So, we’ll rendevous by 7:45 a.m. in the Lowe’s parking lot at Peach Orchard Rd. and the Bobby Jones (adjacent to where our last monthly meeting was held.) and depart promptly at 7:55 a.m. for a leisurely 30-minute drive to Waynesboro down US-25.

Since we’re a car club, join us for a short and scenic after-breakfast drive for about another 40 minutes as we loop back to Augusta.

The Planning Meeting was raucous as usual and a lot of event ideas were bandied about, but only a small portion were really set in stone. Those of you who volunteered for something will need to do one of two things, a) log in to the web site (you do remember how to do that right?) and enter the details or b) send said details to the webmaster and he will put it on the interweb for you.

The January breakfast was well attended, but afterward because it was so cold, most everyone hightailed it back to their heated homes before the warmth of coffee consumed could wear off.

Future Events:

The February Breakfast will be on the the 21st and Rally Master Dave Schumacher was evasive as to location, but he did say that there would be a drive involved (hey, after all we are a car club.)

The annual Club Anniversary Banquet will be held at the General Elliot Inn about 8 miles east of downtown Aiken in the wilds of Aiken County on Saturday, February 28th. There will likely be 4 different entree choices, steak, chicken, lamb or crab cakes ranging from $18 -$26 each. The Club will kick in a stipend, the total of which comes from a complicated formula that is inversely proportional to the amount of people who show up and directly proportional to how much we have over a grand in the bank.

Actual Business:

nichts

The March meeting will be at the Asian Buffet in North Augusta, SC on the 5th.

At the 1989 Chicago Auto Show Mazda unveiled its new sports car, the Miata. Right now twenty years later at the same Chicago Auto Show it is unveiling the freshened third generation version of that same sports car. Motorsports Books has recently published a new book by Larry Edsall, Miata 20 Years, that is an excellent guide to the history of my (and possibly your) favorite car.

If you would like to know how the Miata was born (an auto journalist’s response to a car executive’s question), how it got where it is today (Guinness World Record’s best-selling sports car with over 850,000 made) and everything in between, then this book is for you.

Even if you think you know everything there is to know about the Miata, this book is still for you, as you’re bound to find some stuff you didn’t know. I did, and that is a tall order because I’ve owned three Miatas since 1989, I have a 14 year collection of the original Miata Magazine, I used to read the big mailing list back when (can you say 200 emails a day) and now peruse the Miata.net Forum with regularity.

If you are thinking about buying your first book on the Miata, start with this one, for the list price of $25 you get nearly 200 pages full of information, color photographs and illustrations that will keep you entertained for days.

If you already have a bunch of books on the Miata, this would still make a nice addition just for its trick 2-layer front cover. Looking at the book you see an overhead view of the car with its top up, unfold the right side top flap (lightly magnetized) and now it is an overhead view with the top down.

You can get the book direct from the publisher, on Amazon or possibly your local big box bookstore.*

*Ethics Disclaimer: The publisher gave me a copy of the book because I said I would write this review.**

**Ethics Disclaimer, Sub Paragraph B: Had I known Miata 20 Years existed before that happened, it would have already been on my Amazon Wish List…